Vernazza

Vernazza is the second village that is part of the Cinque Terre National Park and is one of the most beautiful villages in Italy. It is set in a bay between the towns of Monterosso al Mare and Riomaggiore, and it also includes the next village of Corniglia, its hamlet.
The village has architectural elements of great value, such as loggias, churches, houses - towers and arcades.
It is also dominated by the remains of the "castrum", several medieval fortifications dating back to the eleventh century, with a castle and a cylindrical tower and the houses are separated by a single central street and steep stairs named "harpies".

The first documented news of Vernazza dates back to an act of 1080, in which the castrum Vernatio is cited as the maritime base of the Obertenghi. They were lords of Vernazza in the eleventh and twelfth centuries who tried to defend the territory from the assaults of Saracen pirates and start the first commercial exchanges. The marquises themselves built a first sighting and defense post in 1056.
Thanks to the increase in commercial traffic and the development of the marina, Vernazza entered the graces of the Republic of Genoa, which intended to make it one of its coastal bases for the commercial, political and above all territorial conquest of the Ligurian Levant. In 1209 the eighty-eight heads of the Vernazza family swore loyalty to Genoa and its Republic.

In Vernazza we cannot miss the opportunity to visit the Church of Santa Margherita di Antiochia, in Romanesque-Genoese style, whose construction dates back to the thirteenth century, in which there are medieval and Renaissance elements and the Castello dei Doria, a medieval fortress about seventy meters high.

BY CAR

• It is one of the most isolated villages of the Cinque Terre to be reached by car because the road that connects them is very narrow and winding.

BY PLANE

• Pisa airport
• Genoa airport